CES 2014: Asus PadFone Mini pairs a little tablet with a little phone

CES 2014: Asus PadFone Mini pairs a little tablet with a little phone

1:39 /
January 8, 2014

Asus has taken a shrink-ray to its docking tablet tech. Will smaller screens make it more appealing?

We're at CES 2014 checking out some of Asus' new technology.
What we've got here is the Padfone Mini.
It's a miniaturized version of its smartphone that fits into a tablet.
Let's talk about the phone first, it's got a 4-inch 480x800 pixel resolution.
That's not a particularly high resolution but it looks all right.
The screen seems quite bright, everything seems very colorful, so I'm not too worried.
Around the back there's an 8-megapixel
camera which has quiet a cool selfie feature.
When you're pointing the phone at yourself and some friends, it will take the photo automatically once it detects some faces.
When things really get interesting is when you slide the phone into its tablet dock.
This a 7-inch screen, it's got a 1280x800 pixel resolution.
So, everything is just a lot bigger than it is on the phone.
Something quiet cool about this is it's got its own batteries, so you can charge it up separately and when you plug the smartphone in, that will get charged up by the tablet.
Asus' loaded this technology with its own Google Now equivalent software.
It's called "What's Next" and it pulls data [unk] calendar, it's got the weather, things like that and it puts it all in one easy to digest screen for you.
A final note on the design because I quiet like the chunky feel of the tablet and the phone.
It comes in arrange of colors as well and who doesn't like bright colors.
Pricing for this is still up in the air but looking at the specs, I'm hopeful that it would be quiet cheap.
We should see it sometime in the
first half of this year.
Let me know what you think and check out ces.cnet.com for more.